Environmental Politics

The Elgin City Council Wednesday evening is set to discuss paying $30,000 to renew the city's membership in the Metro West Council of Government. The Aurora-based Metro West Council of Government was formed in late 2004, and its current membership includes 34 towns in Kane, DeKalb and Kendall counties that have a combined population of more than 750,000. Dues are based on each town's population. Participating municipalities include Algonquin, Aurora, East Dundee, Gilberts, Hampshire, Sleepy Hollow, St. Charles, South Elgin and West Dundee. Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain is the current president of the group, through September. Elgin's dues would cover from May through the end of...

Related "Environmental Politics" Articles

Steve Posselt launched Friday from Fort Monroe's beach and prepared to paddle his kayak to the Virginia Beach shore, three miles away and barely visible on the horizon. This is a short day for him — on a good day he can cover 30 miles.
Posselt, a...

Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless radioactive gas. It is dangerous because we cannot notice it with our senses. Radon can come into homes through cracks in basement floors or foundations, cracks around service pipes, floor drains, and dirt...

Peninsula localites are beginning to feel the impacts of an improved economy, and it's showing up in their budgets.
The slash-and-burn budgets of a few years ago are being replaced with modest spending growth in operating budgets and larger increases...

Virginia and other bay states have made progress in reducing nutrients and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay, but new data released Monday show a mixed bag over whether they're on track to meet long-term goals.
Scientists with the Chesapeake Bay Program...

Precious few obstacles stand in the way of Dominion Virginia Power building a 500-kilovolt transmission line across the James River. A case before the state Supreme Court could halt it, and it's possible the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won't approve...

A big lesson from the crude oil train that derailed in Lynchburg last April, sparked a raging fire and spilled fuel into the James River is this: Get ready for the next one.Not that emergency response experts are predicting another derailment in Virginia,...

Environmentalists said they are upset that one of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's top environmental officials testified in support Wednesday of federal legislation they say will hurt efforts to curb pollution from coal ash.
Virginia Department of...

Peninsula residents and businesses could face brownouts or rolling blackouts early in 2017 if Dominion Virginia Power can't get started on a controversial transmission line across the James River by the end of the summer, company officials warned the Army...

Dominion Virginia Power wants to give less information about its finances to state regulators, including what kind of profits its rates are designed to provide for investors.
But some opponents, including Attorney General Mark Herring's office, are...

Metro Fiber Networks plans to place an underwater fiber optic cable on the floor of the Chesapeake Bay connecting the Peninsula to Norfolk through Fort Monroe.
The Yorktown-based telecommunications company has been seeking approvals from Hampton and Fort...

Runoff from farmland has been called the largest source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.
Now Virginia farmers will be able to use about $3 million in federal and state funds during the next four years to cover nearly all the cost of increased...

RICHMOND – The Virginia General Assembly is chugging toward a weekend close to this 2015 regular session.A number of marque issues – ethics reform, day care regulatory reform and new campus sexual assault reporting rules – remain unresolved due to...

Conservative activist John Bloom, an engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding, hopes to challenge state Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News, in November.
Bloom supports offshore drilling, mining for uranium, and allowing voters to register by party, to allow...

House Republicans shot down cap-and-trade legislation this week that was meant to raise $100 million a year for sea-rise and anti-flooding projects along the Virginia coast.The proposal was widely rejected Tuesday night, with Dominion Virginia Power and...

The Chesapeake Bay Program just released its annual science-based snapshot of the health of the vast watershed and — aside from outliers like the decimated blue crab population and stalled water quality levels — the news is good.
"What you see in...

In sports, everyone has to play by the same rules. It wouldn't make for a fair competition if one team was subjected to harsher scrutiny than the other or if individual players were held to different standards of conduct.We expect the same approach from...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Sen. Frank Wagner is the chief sponsor of legislation that would weaken state oversight of Dominion Virginia Power's rate setting. The move could help the utility giant's bottom line and its shareholders, of which Wagner is one.
...

What is 'balance?'In the Jan. 21 editorial ("A brighter future"), you conclude your critique of President Obama's energy policies by calling for a "better balance for the future." But what do you mean by...

In the long-term, the Chesapeake Bay is getting healthier. In the short-term — not so much.
That's the gist of an analysis by Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) scientists who looked at nutrient and sediment loads in the James River and eight other major...